Coming soon to the University of Colorado: the “White Privilege Conference”

Pursuant to your post about “white privilege” wristbands, David, it turns out there’s going to be a whole “White Privilege Conference” on April 14 at the University of Colorado. At first I thought maybe they were getting together to design a stylish new look for the white-privilege wristbands – maybe a Celtic pattern stamped into the rubber this year – but no, they’ve got more on the agenda: government-guaranteed jobs.

The federal government should establish a National Investment Employment Corps offering all citizens 18 years of age and above an employment guarantee at a minimum salary of $20,000 with $10,000 in benefits, including medical coverage and retirement support. An upper bound estimate of the expense of the program can be established by putting all 15 million persons unemployed at the peak of this crisis at a mean salary of $40,000, inclusive of materials and equipment per worker, with $10,000 in benefits.

The total compensation package would amount to $750 billion, which is less than the first $787 billion stimulus package and considerably less than the bailout of the investment banks estimated at $7.7 trillion. This initiative would be far superior to the indirect incentive effects of stimulus measures because it would constitute a direct mechanism for job creation and it would trigger a multiplier stimulus effect across wide panoply of activities that take place in the economy

This sort of thing is necessary, according to their abstract, because the United States “is characterized by a longstanding pattern of large structural racial inequality that deepens further as a result of economic downturn.” Gee, thanks a lot, President Obama. Four years of economic downturn – just think how much “large structural racial inequality” has been generated!

If this blast of concentrated idiocy sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because the same idea was peddled by none other than Jesse Jackson Jr. back in his salad days, before he won re-election from a mental health facility in Barack Obama’s corrupt hometown of Chicago, after looting his campaign fund to finance his high-rolling lifestyle and collect some sweet Michael Jackson memorabilia. Kudos to these merry conferees for noting that their “guaranteed employment” program would be a more efficient use of a trillion bucks than the failed Obama stimulus. Then again, so would throwing dollar bills out of helicopters.

“But wait!” you cry. “How does this idea address ‘white privilege?'” Sure, it magically erases unemployment through the simple expedient of having the government “hire” 15 million unemployed people and pay them to do something or other, but this rain of imaginary deficit cash would rain upon jobless people of all colors. Perhaps the black population would get more of this “jobs program” loot because their unemployment rate is higher, but that hardly seems enough to balance out the fearsome power of institutionalized racism.

No worries – white privilege and income inequality will be addressed by “baby bonds,” gifts of government cash bestowed upon children at birth (after the money is printed up by the unicorn-powered presses in the Treasury basement, of course.) This would take the form of “trusts for 50-75 percent of all newborns with an average account of $20,000 that progressively rise to $60,000 for babies born into the most wealth poor families. The accounts would grow at a federally guaranteed annual interest rate of 1.5-2%. The accounts could be accessed when the child becomes an adult and used for some asset-enhancing endeavor such as purchasing a home, or starting a new business.”

It’s all so simple. The government just “guarantees” a lucrative job for everyone, and provides a means-tested pile of cash with “guaranteed” interest to take care of income inequality. Then everyone will be as rich as those privileged white folks, and everything will be fair!